India will invite initial bids for a stake sale in state-run carrier Air India in the next couple of weeks, Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Choubey said on Thursday in a speech at an airshow in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet gave the go-ahead last year to sell Air India, after successive governments spent billions of dollars in recent years to keep it going. However, it has yet to decide on what to do with the carrier's debt burden of $8.5 billion.